Limo service in Kelowna

Wine country with an airport

Kelowna is the Okanagan's city and the Okanagan is Canada's wine valley, and the chauffeur bookings follow: the wine tour by the hour is the reason most visitors book, the airport transfer from YLW to the lakeside resorts and the vineyard inns is the reason the rest do, and the vineyard wedding on a summer Saturday is the region's own industry. Add the ski hills - Big White an hour south-east, Silver Star an hour north - the summer's lake, the tech companies that have made the city the province's fastest-growing, and the retirees who moved here for the climate, and you have a market where a chauffeur is booked for pleasure more often than for business. We run the full service across Kelowna, West Kelowna, Lake Country, Vernon and Penticton: the YLW transfers, the wine tours, the ski transfers, the weddings and the corporate account.

YLW, and how the pickup works

Kelowna International is fourteen kilometres north of downtown on Highway 97, twenty minutes off-peak and thirty in the summer's afternoon traffic. It is a single terminal, busy for its size with the Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto flights and the seasonal sun and US carriers, with a short walk from any carousel to the curb. The pre-arranged limousine pickup is at the arrivals level, signed separately from the taxi rank and the ride-app zone; the chauffeur texts the curb and the plate before landing, meet and greet inside the hall is the add-on, and thirty minutes of waiting are included on a domestic arrival and sixty on an international one. The airport's site at ylw.kelowna.ca publishes the layout. The transfer to a Mission or West Kelowna resort, to a Lake Country vineyard inn or to Big White with the skis in the back is the booking the airport is known for.

The wine tour, worked through

A 10 am pickup at a downtown hotel in a Luxury SUV, the Mission's wineries above the lake by 10:20, two tastings before a vineyard lunch at 12:30, the bridge to West Kelowna's Westside Wine Trail by 2, two more estates with the lake below, Peachland's lookout on the way back, the hotel by 5 with six cases in the back. Booked as an hourly chauffeur for the day; the chauffeur suggests the order and books the tastings that need booking, which in July and September most do. Lake Country's Scenic Sip trail to the north and the Naramata Bench above Penticton to the south are the other two days, and the Okanagan Falls and Oliver estates the fourth. The Wines of BC map lists the estates; the chauffeur knows which have the view.

Downtown, the Mission, West Kelowna and the lake

Kelowna's downtown on the lake - the Bernard Avenue restaurants, the waterfront park, the Prospera Place arena, the hotels along the shore; the Mission to the south with its vineyards and the older houses; the Landmark towers' tech district; UBC Okanagan by the airport; West Kelowna across the William R. Bennett Bridge with the Westside wineries and the Mission Hill estate; Lake Country to the north with the Scenic Sip and the airport hotels; Vernon forty minutes north, Penticton an hour south. Every address prices on the engine, and the British Columbia page covers the province beyond.

Big White, Silver Star and the ski season

Big White is fifty-five kilometres south-east of the airport up a mountain road, an hour in an SUV with winter tyres and longer in a storm; Silver Star is an hour north above Vernon; Apex is above Penticton. The airport-to-hill transfer with the skis in the back, priced as a city-to-city fixed fare with the return built in, is the winter's booking, and the DriveBC feed for the Big White road is what dispatch reads before every one. Christmas week and the February school break are booked in October.

Vineyard weddings

The Okanagan's estates - the lakeside vineyards of the Mission and West Kelowna, the Lake Country benches, the Naramata inns - host the province's destination weddings from May to October, and the summer Saturdays are booked a year ahead. The plan is the wedding page's: the couple's stretch or SUV, the guests' Sprinter or coach from the downtown hotels to the vineyard and back - there are no taxis at a vineyard at midnight - the SUV for the photographer, and the YLW transfers for the family flying in. The lake at sunset is the photograph.

The corporate account

Kelowna's technology companies in the Landmark district and the innovation centre downtown, the agri-food and packaging businesses, the health authority and the regional hospital, UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College, the developers building the lakeshore towers: the corporate accounts book the YLW transfer, the hourly chauffeur for the visiting investor's day, and the client's wine afternoon. The Vancouver and Calgary flights are forty-five minutes each way and the account has both airports on the profile.

Prospera Place, the calendar and the lake

Prospera Place for the Rockets and the concerts; the Kelowna Community Theatre; the waterfront's festivals - the Canada Day fireworks, the Regatta in August, the Okanagan Wine Festivals in spring and fall, the Ironman in August that closes the lakeshore for a Sunday. Summer on the lake is the season and the city's population doubles; the nights out page covers the waterfront's evenings.

Traffic, weather and the honest drive times

Highway 97 is the only road and it is slow through the city's centre in summer and at the bridge at 5 pm; the Bennett Bridge to West Kelowna backs up in July; the Big White road closes in a storm. The weather is the valley's: hot dry summers with a wildfire season that has closed the highway and the airport some years, mild winters in the city and real ones on the hills. DriveBC is what dispatch reads. The honest figures: YLW to downtown in twenty minutes at 6 am and thirty at 4 pm in July; downtown to Big White in an hour on a clear day; downtown to Penticton in an hour.

Hotels and the drop-off

The Delta Grand and the Eldorado on the lake, the Hotel Eldorado's Mission neighbour the Manteo, the Cove in West Kelowna, the Sparkling Hill above Vernon, the Four Points and the Hampton by the airport, the Naramata Heritage Inn and the Penticton Lakeside to the south: the chauffeurs know each forecourt, and the travel desk books the room.

What a limo costs in Kelowna

Fixed by the addresses and the vehicle class, shown before you book. YLW to downtown in an Executive Sedan is the most-booked transfer; the resorts and the vineyard inns price by distance; Big White and Silver Star are single fixed fares each way; the wine day is priced by the hour with a minimum. No surge on a Regatta weekend, no meter, no gratuity added. The fleet page has the capacities.

Two questions Kelowna visitors ask the desk

How many wineries fit in a day? Four with a lunch, five without, in one district; a chauffeur who tries for eight is not doing you a favour. Can we take the wine home on the plane? Yes, in checked luggage; the SUV takes the cases to the hotel and the chauffeur to YLW takes them to the counter. A third, asked every autumn: the Fall Wine Festival's first two weekends of October fill the tastings by noon, and the chauffeur books the slots when asked.

A ski transfer, worked through

A Saturday 1 pm landing from Toronto on WestJet in February, a family of four with skis and boots, bound for a Big White condo. The Luxury SUV was booked in November with the flight number and a booster seat noted; the aircraft is twenty minutes late and the chauffeur's schedule moves with it. The domestic bags and the ski bags take twenty-five minutes; at 1:50 the family is at YLW's pre-arranged curb, the skis are in the back, and the SUV is on Highway 97 south and the Big White road by 2:15. DriveBC showed the road clear that morning and dispatch checked it again at noon; the condo's village lane is reached at 3:05, one fixed fare, the return on the following Saturday booked on the same reservation. The same booking in a snowstorm is the same fare and a longer drive.

The lake in summer

From June to September the city's population doubles and the lake is the reason: the beaches along the waterfront and in the Mission, the boat rentals, the Regatta in August, the wineries' patios at sunset. An hourly chauffeur for the evening - dinner on Bernard Avenue, the Mission Hill amphitheatre's concert above the lake, the hotel by midnight - is the summer's booking, and the Bennett Bridge's 5 pm queue is the chauffeur's business. Tourism Kelowna's calendar has the dates.

Vernon, Penticton and the valley's length

The Okanagan runs two hundred kilometres from Vernon in the north to Osoyoos at the US border, and Kelowna is its middle: Vernon and Silver Star forty minutes north, Penticton and the Naramata Bench an hour south, Oliver and Osoyoos and the desert wineries two hours south, the Kelowna-Vancouver drive five hours west over the Coquihalla. All are city-to-city fixed fares with the return built in, and the British Columbia page covers the Coquihalla's winter. The wildfire season that has closed the highway and the airport some summers is the valley's other weather, and dispatch reads DriveBC and the airport's own status before every summer pickup; a diversion to Kamloops or Penticton is met there where the roads allow, and a cancelled flight is a free cancellation on our side.

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